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Feds giving disabled vets financial help at retirement

Minister of Veterans Affairs Erin O'Toole announces a new financial benefit aimed at providing financial stability to veterans who are moderately to severely disabled on Monday, March 9, 2015 in Toronto. (CRAIG ROBERTSON/Toronto Sun)

The federal government is creating a new benefit to help seriously injured veterans who now face an income cut when they reach retirement age.

The program, announced Monday in Toronto by Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O’Toole, will provide moderate to severely injured veterans up to 70% of what they received in financial benefits from the government prior to turning 65.

Under the current system, no such benefit is available for those injured soldiers after retirement age.

Compounding the problem, many of those same soldiers are not well enough to work, able to save for retirement or earn a pension.

“Today we are closing that gap,” O’Toole said. “Therefore, I am proposing a new benefit today that goes one step further by providing life-long financial security to moderately to severely disabled Canadian veterans through a monthly income support payment beginning at age 65.”

The benefit would be calculated on a case-by-case basis and the program still has to be approved by the House of Commons. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, approximately 5,800 veterans and their survivors would qualify for the benefit by 2020.

The benefit will be fully indexed and a spouse would qualify for 50% of the monthly stipend in the event of a recipient’s death.

Guy Parent, Canada’s veterans ombudsman who identified the gap in a report two years ago, lauded the government for trying to address the issue.

But he cautioned that while the announcement was a good first step, veterans won’t know if the program meets their needs until it’s fully implemented.

“It’s hard to tell in advance,” he said. “We will have to be vigilant and look at that aspect of that.”

The program is designed to address such problems as providing support for soldiers who were seriously wounded in Afghanistan but did not serve the 10 years needed to qualify for a full military pension.

Parent said his office will work with the government to put things into place.